


garden child

by moonythejedi394



Series: tiny Hobbits [4]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Cabbage Patch Hobbits, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, Implied Mpreg, Kid Fic, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, i guess?, now not only are there tiny hobbitses but there is a baby dwobbit, to be completely honest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 19:11:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11950794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonythejedi394/pseuds/moonythejedi394
Summary: “Thorin and I are expecting a child,” Bilbo announced. Kíli choked on a bite of bread, Fíli spat wine clear across the table, Tauriel dropped the bowl of potatoes in her hands, and Dís just about fell off her chair. “Pardon me,” Kíli said, a little hoarsely, “but don’t you need a, er, a uterus for that?” “No. You see, Hobbit children are grown in the garden,” Bilbo answered. “What, right next to the cabbages?” said Kíli.The biggest difference between Hobbits and Dwarves was not, as most people assume, the lack of beards or the size of feet. In truth, the difference was in the method of their birth. While Dwarves did things the old fashioned way, with their womenfolk carrying their children for nine months, Hobbits made use of a single seed, two locks of hair, and fertile soil. This, of course, means that where Dwarves need both one male and one female to bring new life to the world, Hobbits need no such restriction.





	garden child

**Author's Note:**

> _guess who's back, back again, moony's back, tell a friend. and now, the feature presentation, the creation of a baby Dwobbit._

* * *

 

_garden child_

 

The moment Thorin had gifted him the garden, Bilbo had been thinking about a child. He knew that dwarves did not grow their babes in the garden as Hobbits did, but there was still a nagging thought in the back of his mind, wondering if he and Thorin ought to try. First, if he even wanted to consider trying, he couldn’t plant a child in an empty garden, so he focused on growing flowers and vegetables and herbs and teas, and he even had a few berry bushes planted. By late spring, the garden was quite full, except for one spot in the center. Even if he never attempted it, he knew that any proper Hobbitish garden had a special place set aside for a fauntling’s growth. He would probably never attempt it. He had Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin, and they were enough of a handful on their own, never mind Kíli’s twins and Fíli’s daughter, who had just learned to walk. He’d leave that place empty, yes, but he would likely never plant there.

 

One afternoon in late spring, Bilbo was doing a bit of weeding in the garden with the company of Thorin, sat on a bench and reading some reports, when his husband seemed to notice that empty place.

 

“What are you going to plant there?”

 

Bilbo looked up, then down, and back up at Thorin. He hesitated, then sat back on his heels and stared at the reserved spot.

 

“Truth be told, I wasn’t sure of planting anything there,” he answered.

 

Thorin frowned. “Why not? It seems one of the best places in the whole garden, it gets the most sun.”

 

“I know, well, it’s an old tradition.”

 

“To have an empty place?”

 

“Er, sort of, it’s more like a reserved place.”

 

Thorin frowned even more. “What would be planted there, then?”

 

Bilbo squirmed a little. He’d never brought this up with Thorin, he hadn’t even needed to bring it up with Sam or Frodo yet, they were still too young to be worrying about such things. What if Thorin thought it horribly strange?

 

“There’s always a place set aside in a Hobbitish garden for, er, for faunts,” he said.

 

Thorin raised an eyebrow, his confused frown steady. “To play in?” he asked.

 

“No,” Bilbo said, then made up his mind to just let it out. “Tobegrownin.”

 

“Pardon?”

 

Bilbo let out a breath. “To be grown in. Hobbit children are grown in gardens. It’s said that since Hobbits came from Men once, it used to be that we bore them like any other race, but when we shrank, our faunts did not shrink as we did, so it became dangerous for Hobbit lasses to bear children as Men do. The Lady Yavanna took pity on us and gave us the gift of planting our children, in exchange for our care of all things green and growing.”

 

Thorin blinked. He glanced between the empty place and Bilbo, then his eyebrows shot up and he sat up straight. “Are you saying that Hobbit bairns are grown and not born? Is one parent of each gender still necessary?”

 

“No,” Bilbo answered. “No, two female Hobbits or – or two male Hobbits could plant and grow a child.”

 

“Could we –?” Thorin stopped halfway through, the question hanging in the air heavily.

 

“It might not work,” Bilbo said, but Thorin had leapt off the bench and bounded over to him, careful to avoid stepping on any plants, of course, “I’ve never heard of a Hobbit marrying outside our race before, let alone attempting to plant a child with a non-Hobbit.”

 

But Thorin was grabbing his hands and pulling him to his feet, his face terribly serious as he pressed a hand to Bilbo’s cheek. “But we could try?” he asked in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

 

“Would you want to?” Bilbo asked.

 

“More than anything,” Thorin murmured. “How is it done? When could we do it? Is there a specific time we should do it? How long would it take?”

 

“Calm down, calm down,” Bilbo half laughed, then he paused in his answer to kiss Thorin. “It takes about a year and a half usually, and in fact, it is planting season.”

 

“Could we plant a bairn now?” Thorin asked, a grin spreading across his face.

 

“I mean, yes, we could if –”

 

Thorin didn’t seem to hear the rest of his sentence. With a whoop, Thorin grabbed him by the waist and lifted him into the air, spinning him around, before setting him back down and kissing him firmly. When he pulled back, Bilbo was rather dazed.

 

“What do we need?” Thorin asked.

 

“Erm, another kiss like that to start,” Bilbo said, blinking rather a lot for the afternoon sunlight on the terrace.

 

Thorin laughed and kissed him again. Bilbo pulled back.

 

“No, seriously, we’ll need a seed, a lock of hair from both of us, and we’ll need to kiss.”

 

“Really?” Thorin asked, chuckling.

 

“Yes, one of us will put the seed in their mouth and then pass it to the other in a kiss.”

 

“I like that,” Thorin said.

 

“And the locks of hair will need to be braided together.”

 

“That sounds almost dwarvish,” Thorin said, smiling.

 

Bilbo nodded, then grinned back at his husband and pulled from his embrace. “Well, come on, then!”

 

Bilbo went back to their bedroom in search of one particular seed, while Thorin fetched something they could cut the locks of hair with. They met back at the garden over the reserved place, Thorin with a small knife and Bilbo clutching the seed in his hands.

 

“What is it?” Thorin asked, his voice hushed.

 

“It’s the seed for a red carnation,” Bilbo answered. “I had many red carnations planted at Bag End.”

 

“They’re a lovely flower,” Thorin said, and he sounded a touch confused.

 

“Flowers have a language,” Bilbo told him. “Hobbits are quite particular of the bouquets they put together, as they can send a very distinct message. Once in my youth, I sent Lobelia Bracegirdle a bouquet of yellow carnations and lilies and daffodils, petunias and tansies, all because she’d sent me strawberry rhubarb pie when she knew full well that I’m allergic to rhubarb.”

 

“What do red carnations mean?” Thorin asked.

 

“My heart aches for you,” Bilbo answered.

 

Thorin pressed a kiss to his forehead. “It’s fitting, then, that this will be the seed we grow a child from.”

 

Bilbo smiled warmly, then took the knife from Thorin and reached up to cut a small lock from his head. His hair had grown rather long in the past six years, which made it the perfect length for braiding. Thorin cut one as well, and his husband made quick work of braiding them together, with two sections being wholly intact and the third a mix of their two hairs. Bilbo tied the two ends together with a thin ribbon, making a circlet of the braid, then placed it in Thorin’s palm and covered it with his own hand. With the other, he put the carnation seed in his mouth, then kissed Thorin deeply. After a moment, Thorin pulled back, then removed the seed from his mouth.

 

“And now we plant it?” Thorin asked.

 

“And now we plant it,” Bilbo answered. He bent to his knees and dug a small hole with his hands, and when it was deep enough, Thorin placed the seed at its depths followed by the braided lock of hair. Bilbo scraped the earth back over it, and patted it down gently. He took Thorin’s hands, then let his eyes shut and began to pray.

 

“Dearest Green Lady of the rolling fields and rich harvest, to your people you gave a gift, that our children could be born safely and without risk to their mother. I know that I ask for much in asking for you to allow our love to bring forth a child, but it would bring me, us, no greater joy than a faunt of our own. I beg of you, smile on us this day and let this seed take root.”

 

He squeezed Thorin’s hands, signaling that he had finished, and opened his eyes, readying to get up, but Thorin began to speak. Bilbo stilled, and his heart warmed at Thorin’s words.

 

“Lady Yavanna, your gift to my husband’s people is the only hope I have ever had for a child of my own. We dwarves are a passionate and spirited people, we love our treasures and crafted things, yes, though there is nothing we love more than our children. I know that you may not love dwarves, as we break down the trees and carve into the earth rather than care and cultivate it, but you love our Maker, and for the love you have for him and for my husband’s people, I would beg of you your grace, that a little one of our own could be granted to us. I would love and cherish that child beyond all else, knowing them to be a gift directly from you, my Lady. I can only beg.”

 

When Thorin squeezed Bilbo’s hands again, Bilbo released them to throw his arms over Thorin’s neck, pulling him in for a kiss.

 

“Is that it?” Thorin asked.

 

“Well, sometimes the parents will –” Bilbo flushed. “Well, they’ll have each other, as a show of their love for each other, but that’s not necessary.”

 

Thorin dropped a kiss onto Bilbo’s nose, then he abruptly got up, walked over to the door giving entry to the terrace, and shut it firmly. Bilbo’s flush deepened as Thorin turned back around, an intense, dark look in his eyes, as he crossed back over to him, taking great care to step over and around all the plants in the garden, before dropping down in front of Bilbo again, pulling him into his lap, and pressing his mouth to his in a fierce kiss.

 

While, strictly speaking, this part wasn’t necessary, it seemed that Thorin wanted to make quite sure of the job.

 

Bilbo watched that patch of dirt very carefully over the next few days, Thorin always right behind him. The ground remained bare for nearly a week, such that Bilbo had given up almost all hope, until:

 

“Bilbo, Bilbo, Bilbo, come here, look!”

 

Thorin’s excited shout drew Bilbo away from the tomatoes at once, and in an instant, he was at his husband’s side, staring down at the earth where they had planted the seed of a child. Bilbo’s hands clapped to his mouth as he gasped, for where the soil had been bare just yesterday, a small sprout of two red-tinged leaves had pushed up to be seen.

 

“Did it work?” Thorin asked in a hushed voice.

 

“That’s not a carnation,” Bilbo murmured.

 

Thorin pulled his hands away from his mouth and cupped his cheek with one of his, turning Bilbo’s face up to look him in the eye. “We’re going to be parents,” he whispered.

 

“We’re going to be parents!” Bilbo shouted, and flung his arms around the neck of his dwarf.

 

“We’re going to have a little one!” Thorin cried, grabbing Bilbo around the waist and lifting him off his feet. “A wee babe of our own, Bilbo, think it!”

 

Bilbo laughed and kissed Thorin, his smile still ear to ear. Thorin set him back upon the ground and leaned his forehead against Bilbo’s, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

 

“One of our own,” Thorin whispered, his voice barely a breath.

 

“Should we tell the family yet?” Bilbo asked.

 

“We’ll tell them tonight at supper,” Thorin said. He kissed Bilbo’s nose, causing him to giggle, and tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. “Kurdulu, my One,” he murmured.

 

Bilbo gave him another kiss, sinking deeper into Thorin’s embrace, and, with his dwarf’s arms wrapped tightly around him, sent a silent prayer of thanks to Lady Yavanna.

 

Bilbo hummed with excitement all the rest of the day; he gave Pippin his reading lesson and quizzed Frodo and Sam on their Khuzdul and helped Tauriel wrangle Víli and Lilì for a bath, all the while with a constant smile on his face, even when Lilì splashed water all over his waistcoat. Finally, dinnertime arrived, and Bilbo could hardly sit still in his chair.

 

Partway through the meal, with all the small talk over and done with, Thorin caught Bilbo’s eye and smiled. Bilbo raised an eyebrow, silently asking if now was the time.

 

“What are you two all smiley about?” asked Kíli.

 

“Yes, I noticed that too, it’s highly suspicious,” Fíli added.

 

“Perhaps they’ve had some particularly good news,” Ori suggested; a bit dryly, he was trying to feed Lȍri some peas and, so far, had been unsuccessful. Lȍri, however, had managed to smash several peas on Ori’s nose, and she seemed quite pleased with herself over it.

 

“Actually, we have,” Thorin said. Ori looked up; Lȍri flung another pea at him and it bounced off his forehead to land on Fíli’s spoon. Fíli merely shrugged and ate it anyway.

 

“Then what is the good news?” Kíli asked.

 

Bilbo reached up and took Thorin’s hand. “Thorin and I are expecting a child,” he announced.

 

Kíli choked on a bite of bread, Fíli spat wine clear across the table, Tauriel dropped the bowl of potatoes she’d been passing to Sam – which fell and spilled all over the table – and Dís just about fell off her chair. Lȍri seemed to find it highly amusing and clapped her pea-stained hands. Bilbo also thought it rather amusing, while the table at large gaped at them. The children, however, reacted very little, especially Sam, who gave Bilbo a cross look for causing Tauriel to drop the potatoes.

 

“Pardon me,” Kíli said, a little hoarsely, having cleared his airways of the offending food, “but don’t you need a, er, a uterus for that?”

 

Thorin wiped wine off of his face, with all the grace of a king who’d just been spat on by his nephew. “Not if you’re a hobbit, apparently.”

 

“And what does that mean?” asked Dís incredulously.

 

“Well, Hobbit children are not born the way dwarven children are,” Bilbo started to explain, then paused to glance at the young ones sat at the table.

 

“What, are they carried in by a stork?” Kíli asked in a scoff.

 

“But you said that’s where babies came from!” Pippin exclaimed.

 

“Erm…” Kíli said.

 

“That’s where Elven children come from, Pippin,” said Tauriel in an effort to save her husband.

 

“Then where do Dwarven children come from?” Pippin asked suspiciously.

 

“Erm, well, the point is that Hobbits are born different, yes?” Kíli said, floundering a little.

 

“Yes, very different,” Thorin said, then looked at Bilbo. “Bilbo?”

 

Bilbo could only be a little annoyed that Thorin was leaving the difficult part for him, since he was still very elated by the fact of the matter, and forged on. “Hobbits are grown in the garden.”

 

Kíli said: “What, right next to the cabbages?” at the same time as Fíli said: “Like Elven children are brought in by stork or really?”

 

“Are Elven children brought by stork or not?” Pippin demanded.

 

“Really, but not next to the cabbages, it’s better to plant them with flowers,” Bilbo said, ignoring Pippin. “We planted a seed about a week ago and it’s taken root. The little one will probably be with us in a year or so.”

 

“Wow,” Ori whispered.

 

“Well,” Dís said, “that truly is remarkable.”

 

“We’re getting a cousin?” Fíli murmured.

 

“Congratulations!” cried Kíli. “Just remember, that as I am not the Crown Prince, I will be available much more often for babysitting the wee one.”

 

“Oh, but I actually have a lot less on my plate these days,” Fíli countered, “I could babysit all the time.”

 

“Except you’ve got a baby of your own to watch, remember?” Kíli pointed out to his brother. “I really ought to be the primary babysitter, considering how much you have to watch Lȍri.”

 

“The more the merrier!” Fíli insisted.

 

“I think Dís will be the one babysitting, if needed,” Bilbo said, smirking.

 

“Or Thorin could always take the little one with him to council,” Dís said, smiling warmly at them both. “I remember Grandfather did that all the time with Frerin.”

 

Bilbo glanced at Thorin, about to ask something, but forgot it entirely at the broad smile on his husband’s face. He smiled again, squeezing Thorin’s hand for a brief moment.

 

“Do Elven babies come by stork or what?” Pippin demanded for the second time.

 

And thus, the moment was broken, as Kíli stammered and looked to Tauriel for help, who only raised her eyebrows and turned her attention to forcing Víli to eat his vegetables.

 

Their sprout of a child grew steadily, and before Bilbo knew it, months had passed and that first little sprout had grown to a sapling, the sapling to a strong little bush, the first flower blossomed and become the fruit that their child would grow from. Spring became summer, summer became autumn, autumn became winter, and winter turned to spring again. Lȍri said her first word (“no”, which both delighted and exasperated her parents, especially Ori), Víli and Lilì started learning to read (Lilì was apparently dyslexic), and the four fauntlings that Bilbo had brought to Erebor slowly became bilingual as they learned more and more of Khuzdul daily (somehow, Merry had already learned a few curse words in the Dwarvish language, which Bilbo decided to blame on Fíli and Kíli collectively.) Thorin and Bilbo discussed names, and Bilbo agreed to call the child _Frerin_ if it was a boy. Spring became summer again, and harvest season was close at hand.

 

Bilbo began to watch their child’s plant more anxiously as the summer waned. Thorin came to the garden every day and sat on the bench to do his work before moving closer to the plant, eventually just walking directly to the red-leafed plant and sitting down in the dirt to talk to it. The sun set earlier and earlier, the moon rose sooner, and it was nearly Durin’s Day when it happened.

 

The fruit shook. Thorin stopped mid-sentence, which was what caused Bilbo to look up and see that the fruit was shaking. Bilbo leapt to his feet as Thorin called out: “Bilbo, look!”

 

“I’m already looking!” Bilbo said as he stepped over bushes and around vines, hurrying to Thorin’s side and the still shaking fauntling fruit. He dropped to his knees and stared, waiting. The fruit’s shaking was rattling the branches of the bush, and if it was time –

 

The leaves, the ones frosted in red, began to fall from the bush. Bilbo gasped and Thorin grabbed his arm, saying: “Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” in a distressed tone.

 

“A good thing!” whispered Bilbo. Thorin’s grip on his arm first relaxed, and then tightened again.

 

“Is it…?” Thorin didn’t finish his question, but Bilbo nodded.

 

“Just wait,” he murmured, taking his husband’s hand. “Just wait.”

 

The fruit ceased shaking. The last leaf fell from the bush, leaving only green behind. Then, the fruit fell from the bush and landed in the dirt, and cracked down the middle much like an egg. Inside, a little sticky, was the smallest baby girl Bilbo had ever seen. Her hair was the color of Thorin's and curled like Bilbo's, her nose was upturned and button-like like Bilbo's and her mouth thin like Thorin's, and her ears had just the slightest point to them. Thorin reached out a tentative hand, then pulled his other from Bilbo’s grip and carefully lifted the little girl from within the two halves of the fruit. Bilbo stared in awe and delight as their child lifted her head and blinked blearily at them both, then raised both of her little fists and grabbed Thorin’s beard.

 

Bilbo let out a laugh as Thorin made a soft noise of delight and their fauntling, goo and all, curled up against Thorin’s chest with her tiny hands fisted in his beard.

 

“She’s so beautiful,” Thorin murmured. Bilbo kissed his cheek, then grinned down at his daughter and touched a finger to her cheek; the little girl blinked again, then grabbed his finger, her fist barely closing around it.

 

“She needs a bath,” Bilbo cooed. “Don’t you, little one?”

 

Their daughter just blinked at him. Bilbo and Thorin grinned at each other.

 

They left the garden a few minutes later, going to their rooms and the bath. The family apartment was empty at that time, the kids all at their lessons with Balin, the adults at their duties, which was good for their newborn baby, as too many people would overwhelm her, but Bilbo wanted so badly to show every person in the mountain just how beautiful his daughter was. They bathed her and Bilbo fetched in a bottle of goat’s milk from the nearby Royal Kitchens to feed her with. She’d just finished eating and had fallen asleep when Dís walked in.

 

“Thorin, I’ve been looking for you all over, the new trade deal with Mirkwood isn’t going to review itself and –”

 

Dís stopped, her eyes fixed on the baby in Bilbo’s arms.

 

“Oh!” she whispered. “Oh, look at this!”

 

“Dís,” Thorin said, his voice proud and his grin broad, “I’d like to introduce you to Laslûna, daughter of Bilbo Baggins of the Shire and Thorin of the line of Durin, princess of Erebor.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _fun fact, laslûna means rose-lady in khuzdul. yes, roses and carnations are different, but there's no word for carnation in khuzdul and symbolism okay?_  
>  _psst i got that from the dwarrow scholar's fantastic translator available_[here](http://www.dwarrowscholar.com/library.html) laslûna would have had a much more boring name if not for their work give 'em some love or use their resources if you need some khuzdul in your life (which, honestly,  
>  don't we all?)  
>  _follow me on[tumblr](https://moonythejedi394.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/moonythejedi394) bc tumblr is dying_


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